Summary Of Up Against Wal-Mart By Karen Olsson

In “Up Against Wal-Mart,” Karen Olsson strongly denounces the mega-corporation by offering compelling testimonies that depict the retail giant as an avaricious enterprise. Specifically, she focuses on the accounts of employees and their experiences with the company. These employees assert that working at Wal-Mart is, in modern vernacular, hell on earth. Among some of the nightmares that Wal-Mart associates face on a daily basis include low wages, mandatory overtime with no pay, and harassment, by management, toward union supporters. Though I agree with Olsson’s outlook that Wal-Mart mistreats labor and does not provide sufficient benefits, my feelings on the issue are mixed because her one-sided stance renders her argument questionable. In

On the other hand, Wal-Mart is among the greatest things to ever happen to society. Karen Olsson’s argument of employee mistreatment and exploitation is extremely useful because it sheds light on the difficult problem of Wal-Mart’s business practices. Since the beginning of Wal-Mart’s creation, its expansion has been both rapid and prodigious. It has become the world’s largest retailer, topped the Fortune 500 list, and is, still, America’s largest employer with over 1.4 million workers and over 10 billion in earnings (Wake-Up Wal-Mart). Nevertheless, the retail-giant continues to be, as most people would say, cheap. Not only cheap, but heartless. Year after year, the successful corporation continues to make record-breaking profits, with only top managerial executives reaping the benefits on the backs of their hard working employees. Why is it, then, that

If I were an associate, I’d be equally frustrated. Alternatively, as Olsson may not know, “[t]he average two-person family (one parent and one child) needed $27,948 to meet basic needs in 2005, well above what Wal-Mart reports that its average full-time associate earns. Wal-Mart claimed that its average associate earned $9.68 an hour in 2005. That would make the average associate's annual wages $17,114” (Wake-Up Wal-Mart). The mega-chain’s narcissism is clearly evident. The hugely successful enterprise is swimming in wealth, yet it refuses to pay its employees adequately to fulfill their most basic necessities. Not only this, but Wal-Mart has also frequently violated state regulations protecting workers’ rights. In one case, “. . . a California court ordered Wal-Mart to pay $172 million in damages for failing to provide meal breaks to nearly 116,000 hourly workers as required under state law” (Wake-Up Wal-Mart). In addition to violating state laws and paying nominal wages, the mega-corporation’s store managers pressures their associates into working overtime, without pay.